I went to the meeting last night with a 5 minute speech only to be informed that the public comment was limited to 3 minutes (it is usually 5 minutes). As a result I was not able to give the speech I had prepared which I provided in its complete form below.
The district has published the results of a survey designed by someone who does not how to write a good survey with the result that the data collected is worthless. Surveys are quantitative tools. They require math to plan and analyze. Survey designers need to understand sample size, regression analysis, standard deviations and so forth. They are complex and not easy to create as anyone with a doctorate can tell you. Questions have to be worded precisely and sequenced correctly.
The school district survey begins by asking respondents to rank something called an “area” on a traditional Likert scale. The term “area” is never defined. To analyze survey results there must be correlation among the variables being ranked but in this case there is none.
There are eight so-called areas:
- Up-to-date technology in classrooms
- Current class sizes
- Clubs at the MS and HS
- JV and Varsity Athletics
- Middle School Athletics
- Band, Orchestra, Chorus and Art at the Elementary Level
- Preserving AP, Advanced and Honors Classes
- Preserving HS electives
The areas are not correlated. There is not an equal distribution among them and there is not an equal comparison across school levels. In some cases examples are provided (e.g. Math Club) and others none (e.g., JV and Varsity Athletics). You could compare the “Arts” across all school levels but this survey breaks the Arts into different components (e.g. band, orchestra, art) and at different levels (elementary level but not middle school level or high school level). This survey is asking about current class sizes and asking also asking about specific types of classes at one level (e.g. Electives or AP/Honors/Advanced classes at the high school level) but not asking about advanced tracks at the elementary school level (e.g. Kaleidoscope) or middle school level (e.g. Living Environment, Algebra). As there is no correlation there is no way to create a valid measure and thus no valid conclusions can be drawn from the responses.
This survey excludes things such as administrative salaries, out-of-district transportation, cutting non-pedagogical staff like general school aides or glaziers or locksmiths or people like Mr. Organisciak’s assistant whose job has still not been defined after three years of employment with the district. There is no mention of the corruption, the no-show jobs, the phony 211 waivers, the people who show up late, leave early and get paid overtime they did not earn, the 19 secretaries working for just three people at City Hall, the wanton misappropriation of school property by buildings and ground staff, the waste, fraud and abuse that is endemic to the New Rochelle school system where accountability and oversight are a sad joke. Instead, the choice is framed as losing beloved teachers and programs, increasing class sizes and, raising taxes.
Once again the school district presents New Rochelle with a Hobson’s Choice – a false choice predicated on the idea that no significant spending reductions are possible without firing teachers, eliminating popular programs, increasing class sizes and, of course, raising taxes. And once again the district is proposing a phony tax increase — this time 4.2% — which fails to make a REAL projection of the tax assessment based on expected levels of tax certioris. Instead, this budget against mindlessly applies last year’s figure without the slighest attempt to account for City Hall’s forecast of a large increase in tax certs from last year.
There is another way.
What New Rochelle needs is real choice between eliminating waste, fraud and abuse or maintaining the status quo in which the taxpayers are fleeced to the tune of millions of dollars.
While there are many places to look, I am informed that although it is carefully hidden in the budget, the district spends somewhere around $8mm on so-called “security”. More than 70% that cost is personnel costs. Despite the amount of spending there have been serious breakdowns in school security over the past school years while any realistic assessment of actual not reported incidents in our school should raise troubling questions about the efficacy of our current approach to security.
A large part of the problems is that our current security operations in New Rochelle is based on cronyism and uninformed deployment of technology assets by administrators with no appropriate qualifications or credentials; a set up that does little to protect students and staff but does everything to create employment opportunities for the New Rochelle “friends and family” network. As a result, we have a hodge-podge deployment of personnel and technology assets. 40-50 security guards at the high school or one for every 75 students. Barnard has one guard for about 400 students. The alternative school has 4 guards for 70 students or 1 for every 17 students. There are dozens of cameras installed at the high school and middle schools but none at Barnard or Cliff Street.
The starting point is to hire an independent, world-class consultant to perform a top to bottom security review of the entire New Rochelle school system — personnel, management and technology.
The security audit should determine staffing requirements and technology deployment based on sound, professional security analysis not the random thoughts of a couple of retired cops and the desire for certain connected community organization to place associates in cushy jobs with gold-plated benefits.
A requirement of the report from the security firm should include a study on the deployment of Biometric Time Clocks both to track adults coming in and out of the building and as way to track when employees are on and off the job.
It is my understanding that the district spends somewhere around $1.5mm on hourly workers and that little of this, if any, is contained in a line item in this budget. Beyond this there are, by all accounts, a large number of employees who routinely arrive late and/or leave early. This must end once and for all. It is fundamentally unfair to talk about firing conscientious teachers and other staff on a last in/first out method while other workers are being paid large sums of money for hours they do not work.
The most expensive Biometric Time Clock I could find costs about $1,800. There are 10 schools plus the alternative school, Grove Street and Cliff Street. The maximum total costs would be about $24,000. There are lower cost models which could drop the cost to $8-10,000 for the entire district. Given this, and the millions of dollars currently being paid out for hours not being worked, this system will pay for itself and the consulting contract in less than a month and could save the district millions of dollars over time. While the amount of money stolen through such time theft is high and has been going on for years, I would recommend that some sort of amnesty be offered where current employees are warned of the new system and given an opportunity to confom to the new, more reliable and rigorous time management system.
The same does not apply to fraud by outside contractors. This has become a serious problem likely involving criminal activity. There should be a forensic audit with litigation to get restitution of stolen funds and, where appropriate, criminal referrals. Any school district employees involved should, of course, be terminated.
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